Tuesday, June 19, 2012

WWII Draft Card for Arthur Jones

On Monday I wrote about the Confederate pension application for Martin Van Buren Jones. Martin's son, Arthur Eugene Jones, appears in the World War II Draft Registration Cards. This is a fascinating find.

Arthur was born in Thorntown, Boone County, Indiana on 31 December 1879. In April 1942, he was living at Atlas Peak, Napa, California.

Atlas Peak is a designated American Viticultural Area (AVA) or appellation. According to the Atlas Peak Appellation site, the first vineyard in the area after the end of Prohibition was planted in 1940 on Mead Ranch. At this point, I don't know if Arthur Jones worked on Mead Ranch or if he was involved with replanting Atlas Peak with wine grapes.

Map source - AtlasPeakAppellation.com

In March 2010, I wrote to the estate manager at Antica Napa Valley, who helped establish the Atlas Peak AVA. He pointed me in the direction of Cecelia Setty, who wrote a book on the history of the Atlas Peak area titled Atlas Peak... History of a Napa County Settler. Cecelia replied, and said that since Arthur's box number in the draft card was 415, then he would have been her family's neighbor.

Cecelia said the only winery on Atlas Peak in the early days was on the Harker Ranch, which in 2010 was the Sutro Ranch. She also said it is possible that Arthur worked on the ranch of Charles Warren, whose address was Box 400 Atlas Peak. At the time the road was known as Atlas Way. Cecelia knew Mr. Warren when she was a child, and recalls that at this time there were only 5 ranches above the address at 400 Atlas Peak, and these ranches did not have grapes or even an old winery on them (at least not in 1942). Cecelia says they had walnut trees & dairy cattle.

I'll have to include Arthur Jones in my search of the 1940 Census index for California once it becomes available (California is showing as 100% indexed on FamilySearch, but the index has not yet been released).